Yesterday was ‘Archmodel Wednesday’ on Instagram, which meant that YIMBY Forumers were actively posting images of several new developments. And in the background of an image containing SHoP’s 111 West 57th Street, our team of cyber-sleuths spotted another project that has not yet been revealed. 80 South Street’s massing diagram had alluded to the tower’s supertall potential, but now we have a look at an actual model of the building, though the fine-grained details remain fuzzy, which confirms that the tower will rise over 1,400 feet tall. That would make it the tallest building by roof height in Lower Manhattan, standing approximately 50 feet above the rooftop of One World Trade Center.
Despite the lack of detail in the photo, the giveaway is the model’s adjacent neighbor, One Seaport, which is now under construction. That building has an address of 151 Maiden Lane, and while it will stand 670 feet to its roof, it will be diminutive compared to its future counterpart next door, which will stand over twice as tall (and block all of One Seaport’s northern views in the process).
At an estimated height of 1,436 feet, 80 South Street will completely dwarf all other residential buildings in Lower Manhattan, proposed or otherwise. The current tallest is 30 Park Place, at 937 feet, but that will soon be eclipsed by the approximately 1,000-foot 125 Greenwich Street, as well as the 1,127-foot-tall 45 Broad Street. 125 Greenwich is already under construction, while 45 Broad is set to break ground this fall.
80 South Street is slightly further off in the development pipeline, and it has quite the recent history. The site was originally supposed to host a design by Santiago Calatrava consisting of a series of ‘floating’ boxes, which was scrapped in favor of a tower with sky gardens, designed by Morali Architects. After its acquisition by the Howard Hughes Corporation, that design was also tossed, before the site was again sold to China Oceanwide Holdings for $390 million last year.
80 South Street, diagram from City Planning
After receiving approval from the City Planning Commission earlier this year, the developers upped the total air rights to 1,067,350 square feet, including 512,300 square feet for residential use. And with that amount of air rights, a tower rivaling the city’s tallest buildings became a legitimate possibility.
Despite the lack of specific details, it appears the building will be torqued to some degree, while also tapering slightly as it rises. While it doesn’t look to rival 111 West 57th Street in terms of its girth, it will still be rather thin. With a roof standing approximately 50 feet above One World Trade Center’s, 80 South Street’s height alone will be enough to make a significant impact on the Downtown skyline, acting as a counter-weight to the new World Trade Center on the other side of the island.
With design details slowly leaking and an increasing number of supertalls seeking EB-5 financing from abroad, China Oceanwide’s project — which also has an address at 163 Front Street — may finally leave the drawing board after well over a decade of delays. Nevertheless, no completion date has been formally announced yet.
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Much more than booming of supertall, but it is an explosive of construction on skyline.
180 will no longer be the imposing building in the area. It was good while it lasted.